


Control

by strawberrylippy



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, i'd love to say i edited this but i didn't, it's not a cat and mouse game after all, q isn't putting up with bond's egoistic tendencies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28588293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrylippy/pseuds/strawberrylippy
Summary: A chase without the ‘predator and prey’ connotations, perhaps. A chase without the hierarchy. A man used to getting what he wanted versus a man who had gotten what he wanted in half the time and with half the scars. There was no discrepancy here; they were as close to equals as they could be.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Comments: 2
Kudos: 54





	Control

To call James’ pursuit of the Quartermaster a ‘chase’ would’ve been reductive, juvenile, a simplistic way to describe something that was clearly so much more. There were very few things in either men’s lives that could so easily be defined as something as basic as a chase. Foundationally, perhaps, that’s what their jobs consisted of: find target, follow target, eliminate target. As much as it was a simple formula, the nuance of it all rarely allowed for a simple ‘chase’; things went wrong, people died, plans had to be aborted.

Come to think of it, maybe it _wouldn’t_ have been terribly inaccurate to call James’ pursuit of Q a ‘chase’.

A chase without the ‘predator and prey’ connotations, perhaps. A chase without the hierarchy. A man used to getting what he wanted versus a man who had gotten what he wanted in half the time and with half the scars. There _was_ no discrepancy here; they were as close to equals as they could be.

If that was the case, how did it come to be that James felt so perpetually on the back foot? How could he find himself feeling like he was one step behind Q at every turn?

“Nice to see that you’ve come back in one piece and without any venereal diseases, 007” where there should have been a bitter edge, there was instead a twang of bemusement lacing the Quartermaster’s welcome. Q knew better - much like every other poor bastard who handled even the most minute bit of information in Six - than to relinquish any control. Even among colleagues, it was only natural to uphold a certain level of guarded caution. It was drilled into all of them, and to expect Q - arguably one of the most important of the poor bastards in the place - to falter when faced with the, admittedly expert, wiles of a double-oh would’ve been James’ first mistake.

It probably said something substantial about the agent’s view of the situation that it was _far_ from his first mistake concerning Q.

“Sorry to deprive you of your regular voyeur sessions, Q. I’ll be sure to shag a few people next time, just for you.”

The faint smile on Q’s lips didn’t falter, even with Bond’s matching banter. It was an unfortunate part of the younger man’s job, but despite public perception, he _was_ more than a teenager; sex wasn’t any less comfortable for him than it was for anyone else… relatively speaking, of course. Inadvertently becoming the third party to an agent’s liaison was _never_ going to be comfortable.

“If that was my cup of tea, 007, you most certainly wouldn’t know I was eavesdropping. Rather takes away from the thrill if one of the parties is aware that a third is listening, wouldn’t you say?” Without skipping a beat, Q’s fingers continued to glide over his keyboard, keystrokes inputted with the ease of a man who did this sort of thing for a living. He was copying files, yes, but he was also amending some code and checking in on some not-quite-top-secret intel while _also_ holding his conversation with Bond. As much as the double-oh wanted to tease, it would’ve been in vain. Q knew how good he was. There wasn’t a day that went by where someone - most often M, strangely enough - wasn’t heaping praise on the young Quartermaster. Youth may not have been a guarantor of innovation, but there was no denying Q’s expertise, age be damned.

It was that, perhaps, which drew James in. The imperfect perfection of a man who could do a job and do it well. It came with the territory; espionage, for all its violence and trauma, tended to attract the sort of people who were naturally gifted. Those were the ones who stuck around. Those were the ones who were both the most dangerous and the most vulnerable. Q’s effortless balance of both seemed to strike just the right chord with the older man.

A chase, then, but from the perspective of a prey who could effortlessly outsmart the predator hot on its heels. Elusive. Always _just_ out of reach. As irritating and discouraging as it was enticing and heartening. _Almost_ . _Almost_.

“Unlike me, I don’t think you’re the type to mix work and pleasure, Q.” It was that hair-thin line that James had begun to walk around Q, the brazen almost-flirting that worked for him so often out in the field. The sort of thing that the man in his ear, the man currently stood at his desk with those damned brown eyes so casually fixed on the screen before him, had heard countless times second-hand. Bond’s effortless physical control over his own body may have suggested casual disinterest, but Q had seen far too much of 007’s deepest secrets to get lost in something as blatant as the physical.

If Bond had been hoping for a spark of hope with his comment, Q was quick to shut it down, “Quite right. Pleasure rarely pairs well with a job where state secrets are on the line, I’ve found.” A lure. An intentional bit of bait to hold Bond’s attention. Effortless in his execution, the agent found himself very nearly falling for it.

“I mourn your sex life, Q, if you refuse to mix work and pleasure. You work more often than I do; your dating pool can’t stretch much farther than these four walls, surely?” It was a common enough comment to make, Q thought. The sort of pigeonholing that had bred a near-orgasmic satisfaction from him whenever he was afforded the opportunity to smash those assumptions to bits. He’d heard them all, and the fact that this one was coming from the lips of one James Bond did little to spice up the sentiment.

“Your sex life mustn’t be interesting enough if you’re musing over mine, 007. It isn’t something I would concern myself with, if I were you” it was for the first time then that Q’s gaze rose, calm brown eyes meeting icy blue with nary a waver in their stalwartness. Implicit was the rejection of his colleague: James Bond didn’t belong anywhere near Q’s sex life; though handsome, though charming, though tantilizingly dangerous, the man was a colleague. He was _work_.

If he hadn’t been so inextricably drawn to the man himself, this little game he was playing wouldn’t have lasted more than a day for Bond. There was a difference between toying with someone and trying to figure someone out. Q was firmly in the latter category.

“You’re far too comfortable being an enigma around here, Q,” strong arms crossed over an equally strong chest, sleeves drawn taut over Bond’s broad shoulders, “There’s always a hint of truth hidden in the gossip around here.” The disbelief that prickled along Q’s shoulders at the mere suggestion that Bond was threatening him was only afforded an errant second to take hold. Imperceptible. Controlled. Field agents weren’t the only ones who were trained in physical control.

“Given your own track-record in gossip around here, Bond, it isn’t exactly something I need to be reminded of.” As one of the few who tended to know the _truth_ about the man behind the numerical designation, there were countless incidents that Q could list off-hand in which the gossip about James was frighteningly close to the truth. “You’re like me. You’re far more liable to do your own probing and investigating before taking word-of-mouth as the gospel truth. You might even gain some ground if you weren’t quite as brazen about it.”

Was that a hint? A way for James to find an opening? To woo the unwoo-able? If it was, it was just as blatant as his own flirting had been. Not a good sign where progress was concerned, but an implied acknowledgement of Q’s awareness of their little game.

“I’m not one of those gorgeous women falling over themselves to climb into bed with you, nor am I one of those men who take your existence as a challenge to assert their masculinity behind closed doors. I know who you are, Bond, and you’d do well to remember that.”

The slightest tightening of his jaw suggested that Q had hit a nerve, had spoken something that James would’ve preferred to have been left unspoken. That was the point, perhaps. To bring James back to reality, to verbally smack some sense into him. For all that he respected Q professionally, he seemed to lapse in that respect when it came to who the young man was as a person. Evidently, Q was more than happy to remind James of that fact.

It was Q who was the enigma here; little more than a letter. There were, perhaps, two people who knew precisely who the Quartermaster was. Three if one counted the now-deceased M. Parts of Q the person shone through, but the mask that he sported was several times thicker than the dilapidated one that still clung onto James’ weathered features.

“You’re not the first person who’s held that exact belief, Q, and I highly doubt you’ll be the last.” Dismissive tone was less convincing than he’d have liked, carried with it the bitterness of a sore loser who’d just been, essentially, beat at his own game. Q wasn’t there for the one-off fling. He wasn’t going to put up with the effortless sway James seemed to hold over his other partners. Q knew damn well that there was more to him than that, a vulnerability that tended to slip through the cracks in his mask more often than not.

 _That_ was the Bond that Q wanted. _That_ was the Bond who stood a chance at earning Q’s heart. Until then, the Quartermaster had few qualms with putting the double-oh in his place. The fact that it only acted as enticement to the very man who he so effortlessly brushed off was merely a bonus. Age was no guarantee of efficiency, after all.


End file.
